When Delia Hastings is summoned to the headmistress’s study during her final week at St. Eleanora’s Summer School for Young Ladies, she expects a stern talking-to, not a formal correction in front of her peers. But tradition runs deep at St. Eleanora’s, and decorum must be restored. What follows is a quiet reckoning: six strokes, six memories, and a lesson in grace that may stay with her far longer than she ever expected.
“No summer ever came back, and no two summers ever were alike.” (Christina Rossetti)
Chapter 1: Miss Hastings is Summoned
Delia Hastings stood in front of the desk with her hands clasped before her, not because she had been told to, but because anything else felt entirely out of place. She had hoped it would prevent her from fidgeting, though she still felt jittery, her tummy fluttering like a butterfly.
When Julian Peveril strolls into the village library with a smudged copy of Anna Karenina and eighty-three days of overdue fines, he expects a scolding at most. What he receives instead is a practical demonstration of Section Twelve: Paragraph Two, administered with authority, a corrective ruler, and just enough punctuation to make him regret every exclamation mark. Overdue Consideration is a tale of late returns, early regrets, and the enduring wrath of a well-organised librarian.
There was an air of formidable calm about the St. Mallow’s Village Library. Dust motes drifted through slats of golden light, a clock ticked in a tolerable breach of the “Silence” policy, and the reading chairs all bore the slightly sagged look of being sat upon by the same few devoted patrons for the better part of forty years.
Miss Eliza Cartwright presided over this temple of silence with the gravitas of a minor bishop. She was a woman of exacting standards, polished vowels, and the ability to silence patrons with a glance. In her domain, order was more than a virtue—it was a necessity.
The following authors may or may not exist in any conventional sense, and if they do, they are surely the sort to insist on handwritten correspondence and the correct use of a dessert fork. Consider this section a fiction within the fiction, with each persona crafted to reflect the tone, temperament, and tailored sensibilities of the stories they “write.”
Whether wistful, wicked, or ever-so-well-mannered, these biographies might help you find the flavour of story that suits your mood. And, perhaps to suggest that, somewhere between velvet upholstery and moral instruction, a little elegance still matters.